Snack

This special dessert is so good—and so much fun to prepare and serve—I hope you’ll be persuaded to make and keep scrippelle (crêpes) on hand all the time, as they do in the kitchens of Abruzzo. Here, you slice the scrippelle into strips (they look like fresh fettuccine!) and toss them in a hot caramel, apricot, and citrus sauce that you’ve got bubbling in a skillet. Serve the beautifully glazed ribbons still warm, with whipped cream melting on top. This recipe calls for a full batch of the thin pancakes (the same ones used for the savory Crespelle with Spinach, page 234), but it is easy to adjust the amounts to make a larger or smaller dessert. Even if you have only a couple of extra scrippelle in your freezer, you can still transform them, with this basic technique, into a treat for two. Let your creativity loose: Just like pasta, scrippelle ribbons can be dressed for dessert in countless ways. Add rum or liqueur to this caramel sauce, or vary it with other fruit preserves or juices. Shape the ribbons into a little nest for a scoop of ice cream. Or drizzle melted chocolate over the warm ribbons, sprinkle with chopped toasted hazelnuts, and top with a dollop of whipped cream.

This recalls for me the chocolate-and-bread sandwiches that sometimes were my lunch, and always a special treat. And it is another inventive way surplus is used in Umbrian cuisine, with leftover country bread serving as the foundation of an elegant layered dessert. Though it is soaked with chocolate and espresso sauce and buried in whipped cream, the bread doesn’t disintegrate, and provides a pleasing textural contrast in every heavenly spoonful.

Panmelati are a delightful and surprising confection. Sweet, chewy, orange-infused, and crusted in nuts, they could be mistaken for fancy candy balls, but they are actually a kind of no-bake cookie, fashioned from a simple dough of bread crumbs cooked in honey. A great way to recycle old bread, these are quickly made, fun to roll, and a delicious treat with tea, coffee, or a dessert wine.

You roll up this rocciata, a thin pastry with a fruit-and-nut filling, just as you do a strudel—but you don’t bake it like a strudel. Instead, you slice the roll into thin rounds, lay them flat, and bake them into two dozen rich and beautiful spiral cookies. In this version, I macerate dried fruit overnight in vin santo, one of my favorite sweet wines. There’s always a bit of fruity wine left over, and I cook it into a delicious syrup to drizzle over the cookies. Delicious when dunked in a good espresso, and even better when dunked in grappa, these cookies are nice to have around, as well as to give as gifts at the holidays. And I make them after the holidays, too, since they’re such a brilliant way to use up all the dried fruit and nuts I have left over from the festivities.

You don’t need complicated dishes to enjoy the wonderful flavor and aroma of black truffle—bread and butter will do, as this easy recipe proves. Fresh black truffle, if available, always makes great truffle butter. And fresh Norcino truffle, the Umbrian variety plentiful in season around the city of Norcia, considered the finest black truffle in Italy, makes the very best butter. Fresh is always better, but you can use a good-quality jarred Umbrian black truffle. Black truffle from other countries like France is good as well. It’s sold by many specialty-food stores and Internet vendors, at a range of prices.

This savory, thick lentil spread is a great topping for a crostino, especially when made with tiny, firm lenticchie di Castelluccio, which give the mouth-feel of caviar. It can also serve as a fine side dish for any grilled meat, or as the base for risotto or soup. Then again, with the addition of crumbled sausage, it would make a great pasta sauce. So get creative: make a double batch of the lentil topping here, and have fun with all the leftovers.

In the culinary world today, dishes with whole grains are “in,” but they have always been part of Italian regional cuisine, even as desserts. Put together from whatever grains and nuts were in the house, and minimally sweetened with available fruit, traditional desserts like this wheat-berry ambrosia are among my favorites. In that spirit, this recipe can be a guideline for your own creativity. This is a versatile and practical dessert, too. Prepare the mixture of wheat berries, dried fruit, and chocolate in advance, and refrigerate it. Let it return to room temperature before serving (though it is nice slightly chilled in summer). It’s also great for a buffet with whipped cream or scoops of vanilla or chocolate ice cream on top.

This is a generously proportioned version of the delicious rice-and-zucchini crostata, or tart, that my cousin Lidia prepared when our family first visited Genova, nearly fifty years ago. She made hers in a small baking pan, and mine is the same, only bigger! I use a half-sheet baking pan (a jelly-roll pan will work, too) lined with the olive-oil-based dough that has no leavening, is easy to make, and fantastic to roll. The large size of this crostata is necessary, I find, because the crostata disappears right away. Whether I put it on a buffet in bite-sized party pieces, bring it to a picnic, or serve it as a plated appetizer or main course with salad, everyone loves it—and has to have another piece. And in the unlikely event you do have leftovers, they can be frozen and reheated—just as good as when freshly baked. The procedure is straightforward and quick, though there’s one important (and interesting) step you must leave time for: steeping the uncooked rice with the shredded zucchini. Since squash is a watery vegetable and rice is dry and starchy, this steeping allows the rice to extract most of the vegetal water from the zucchini. In this way, the grain is softened enough to cook during the baking time, and without absorbing all the liquid from the ricotta and milk. The result is a moist, creamy, and flavorful filling.

This delightful pudding is a fine example of the art of using leftovers to make something fresh and new (without evidence of recycling). Here, crumbled biscotti, chopped chocolate, and chopped hazelnuts are mixed into the warm custard. As it cools and sets, the dry cookies absorb and meld with the custard, but also contribute their flavor and texture. This recipe is one upon which you can improvise, using whatever sweet remnants you have on hand, whether ginger snaps or shortbread cookies, or bits of dry sponge cake or pound cake.

Biancomangiare (known as “blancmange” in French and English) is a very old milk-pudding dessert that food historians say has been made since the Middle Ages, in countries from the Middle East to Scandinavia. I am delighted with this modern biancomangiare, which I had recently in Valle d’Aosta. Rich with cream, flavored with both vanilla bean and almond extract, and molded in individual ramekins, it is quite similar to panna cotta. So, if you and your family like panna cotta, you will love this, too. The puddings are lovely as is, unmolded onto plates, with their caramel syrup. They’re even better served with poached fruit in season, such as poached pears or cherries. For a special touch, have the poached fruit ready when you make the biancomangiare. Place a pear half or a few big cherries in the bottom of each ramekin or cup just before filling with the sweet pudding mixture. When you unmold it, the biancomangiare will be crowned with the fruit and glistening with caramel.

If you liked the fondues so popular in the 1960s—those pots or chafing dishes of melted cheese in which everyone dunked crudités, crackers, and bread—you will be thrilled to taste an authentic fonduta as it is prepared in Valle d’Aosta. Though the technique of melting cheese over a low flame is much the same, the main ingredient makes all the difference: nothing compares to a fondue of authentic fontina, the sweet, nutty, semi-soft cheese made only in the Aosta Valley—and only from the milk of those gentle dappled red, brown, and black Valdostana cows. Customarily served as a dip for chunks of toasted bread, fonduta is a great sauce for all kinds of foods. I like it on poultry and meats, such as poached chicken or turkey breast, or lightly seared veal medallions; or on vegetables—steamed asparagus, broccoli, cardoons, celery, and many more. And it’s delicious spooned over a bowl of hot polenta or boiled gnocchi. There’s one more thing I must tell you. La sua morte, as it is said in Italian, the ultimate pleasurable enjoyment of fonduta alla Valdostana, is to top it with shavings of fresh white Alba truffle from neighboring Piemonte. Two Italian treasures in one dish.

This traditional almond cake is named for the historic city of Mantova (perhaps better known to most English speakers as Mantua, the city to which Romeo is exiled in Romeo and Juliet). The torta is equally delightful for dessert and for breakfast. In the evening, I like to serve it with poached fruit—prunes poached in rum are perfect—and a dollop of whipped cream. Of course, I make sure there’s some left over, so I can enjoy it again in the morning, with my caffè. And since it’s quite moist and keeps well, it will be good the following morning, too (excellent incentive to cut small slices and make it last!). On a more serious culinary note, I want to emphasize the importance of using a fine almond extract in this cake. Indeed, all desserts and dishes that call for fruit, nut, or spice extracts are immeasurably better when you use a top-quality extract rather than a supermarket brand (and never use an imitation flavor). The slightly greater expense of a premium extract is always worthwhile and will pay you back in the flavor of your creations.

My friend Mario Piccozzi and I discovered this deluxe version of bread pudding on a winter visit to Merano, the historic resort town in the middle of the Alps, in Alto Adige. It was the perfect dessert on a cold day, served in its baking dish, still warm from the oven. Spooning the pudding onto plates, I was thrilled to find it loaded with apple chunks and walnuts, oozing rich custard and bubbling apricot jam. I make this at home now (it’s very easy) and serve it just as they do in Merano, family-style, setting the steaming, gold-topped pudding in the middle of the table, with a serving spoon and lots of plates. It disappears fast.

Baked apples are a favorite treat and comfort food in Trentino–Alto Adige as they are here. This recipe emphasizes the treat aspect, since the apples are draped with melted chocolate, chopped walnuts, and Amarena cherries. Many apple varieties are good bakers, including Cameo, Cortland, Empire, Jonagold, Northern Spy, and Rome. Granny Smith and Golden Delicious are always reliable, too.

These sweet doughnuts are bathed in maple syrup just before serving.

This tart sorbet is great on its own as a palate cleanser, but it tastes even better when paired with store-bought vanilla ice cream. Whichever kind of grapefruit you use—pink, white, ruby red, or yellow—the hibiscus ensures a lovely deep-pink color. If you don't have an ice cream maker, turn the sorbet into a granita by freezing it in a 9x9x2" metal pan and mashing any big chunks with a fork after 1 hour. Freeze for 1 hour more, then scrape until it's as flaky as shaved ice.